L2/02-067

Title:

In Regard to Moon

To:

UTC, for information only

From:

Jack Maartman via Rick McGowan

Date:

February 8, 2002

This is a raised script used by a small user community in Great
Britain. The 26 letters of the alphabet are represented by raised
glyphs whose shapes deviate from ordinary letters putatively for
ease of reading. However the system uses single signs for a limited
number of contractions as well as guide lines that resemble
parentheses although not quite so curved.

Until the advent of the system being generated by computer
the lines were written alternately in opposite directions the
curved lines serving to guide the finger from one line to the
next. The characters on the lines read from right to left are
not mirror images of the line above them, but rather the finger
traces the words as if they were written in reverse.

In addition the system employs a small number of symbols
that stand for common letter groups and symbols representing
a single word. I have forgotten how numbers are treated. I
learned the system and could read it slowly and even though
I haven't used it for years could probably recognize most of
the symbols.

It seems to me, because of the use of contracted words and
letter groups and the "guide lines" that it might not be
considered a variant of the Roman alphabet. Even though
computerized moon is always read from left to right the
majority of extant books are written with lines of text
alternating in both directions.

It would be interesting to see whether Unicode would
consider it and assign it a range.

I looked in vain for a text in Moon to send you but
must have scrapped the last of them during my many moves.

The Royal National Institute for the blind is the last
producer of Moon texts.

Historically there were a number of raised scripts some of
them punctiform in use before Braille gained the ascendancy.

This information might be more detailed than the material
I sent you from the RNIB.

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this.
If I manage to acquire some Moon, I will send it along. The
symbols themselves are much higher than Braille dots and the
system can only be written on one side of the page making the
books bulkier than Braille. Nevertheless it is widely read
by older blind persons in England. It is not used at all on
this continent.